


1-3 Cheeseburger Backpack

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24946984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: A mission to the Lunar Sea Spire takes a treacherous turn, but Steven has packed his totally amazing Cheeseburger Backpack with anything they could ever need!
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Kudos: 12





	1-3 Cheeseburger Backpack

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate universe. See series page for more information.

Steven Universe, one half of the Crystal Gem duo tasked with protecting Beach City and the world, was sitting on a rock by the Crystal Temple’s mailbox, singing.

“Hey Mr. Postman, bring me a post, bring me the post that I love the moo-oost.” Steven sang, but stopped when he saw Jamie, the young mailman in his late twenties, appear around the bend.

“Huh?” He gasped in disbelief. “My song came true!” He bobbed up and down in excitement and when Jamie got up to the mailbox Steven asked: “Do you have a package for me today?”

“Hold on,” Jamie replied and opened his bag. “Let me see what I've got here.” Steven continued bobbing while Jamie fished out a package from his bag and asked: “Did you order a loaf of bread with a stamp on it?”

“No,” Steven replied with some confusion.

Jamie rummaged in his bag a little more and pulled out an envelope. “Did you order a jury summons for R.J. Finkle?” He asked, reading the front of the envelope.

“That's not me, I'm Steven,” Steven replied, starting to worry.

“Oh, right, right, right, Steven!” Jamie said remembering what he had walked all the way across the beach for, and pulled out the correct package. “Here it is. Steven Universe,” he read the correct name off the package label to double check. 

Steven glanced at the package and then looked at Jamie again, exclaiming: “Ha! This thing is gonna help me save the world!”

“Really?” Jamie was doubtful. He looked at the label on the package again. “It says it's from Wacky Sacks Supply Company.”

Steven struck a world-saving pose and explained: “Amethyst thinks I shouldn't go on magic adventures because I don't know how to use my Gem powers—“

“That seems reasonable,” Jamie interjected, still holding the package.

“But there are other ways I can help,” Steven continued, spreading his arms wide to indicate the many varied ways he could help during missions.

“...With a Wacky Sack?” Jamie asked, checking that Steven was still talking about the package at hand.

“Exactly!”

“Do you know how you can save my world?” Jamie asked, transitioning the conversation back to mail. Steven didn’t quite catch what Jamie was going for and was alarmed for a moment that Jamie was going to ask him to do something to single-handedly save the world. Jamie took out a signature pad and handed it to Steven. “Sign here, please.”

“Ah!” Steven yelled, understanding Jamie’s earlier comment, and wrote his name with doodles of stars around it.

“Barb yells at me if I don't get signatures,” Jamie explained his predicament.

Steven sympathised, “That's awful.” He was about to share a personal anecdote to illustrate how he understood how Jamie feels when the light of the warp pad coming from the temple illuminated the entire house from inside, interrupting his train of thought. “Amethyst is back!” He yelled, grabbed the package and ran up the stairs to the beach house

“Wait, Steven!” Jamie called after him. “What is a Wacky Sack?!”

\- - -

Steven threw the door open, excited to meet his guardian but stopped in his tracks at the door with a “huh?” when he saw the sight.

Amethyst was completely covered in feathers, carrying a giant egg. “Oh hey Steven” she said nonchalantly while making her way to the fridge. She opened the fridge door.

“I don’t think it’s going to fit,” Steven stepped closer, observing what she was about to do.

“What?” Amethyst glanced at him incredulously. “I got this,” she said and gingerly slid a tray with milk and bagels out of the fridge until it was all the way out of the fridge. She proceeded to just drop the fridgregated groceries on the floor, spilling everything onto the floor. Admittedly the fridge did now have room for the egg, which she placed carefully inside. “Look it fits!” She showed her accomplishment to Steven. Then she slammed the fridge door shut. A crack was heard from the fridge but Amethyst didn’t seem to notice or mind.

Amethyst beamed. “Oh, man. We can make a big omelet, or a quiche, or big sunny side ups!—“ She was very proud of being able to provide for Steven’s organic needs. Wait ‘til Greg hears about this, she thought to herself.

“Where did you get it?” Steven asked.

“I fought a giant bird!” Amethyst said, spreading her arms. “But now I gotta go back out.”

“What?” Steven was disappointed. Amethyst was gone so much. “Why?” He whined, the excitement of the package – which he had forgot he was still holding under his arm – all but gone from the day.

Amethyst fished out a decorative gem statue from her pocket. “I gotta put this Moon Goddess Statue on the top of the Lunar Sea Spire before midnight. Without it, the whole place will fall apart!” Amethyst showed Steven the statue, which depicted a beautiful, dark gem with long flowing hair holding a clear brilliant cut gem. It glistened beautifully in the light.

Steven looked at the gem artifact. “Wha...? That’s perfect!” He rejoiced, remembering his package. He crouched to the floor to open the package.

Amethyst chuckled. “What, why?” She asked.

“Because I can help carry it for you in _this_!” Steven pulled out the contents of the box with dramatic flare and made sound effects with his mouth to indicate that the object was emerging pristinely from vacuum-sealed conditions glinting with newness and coolness.

Amethyst cracked up laughing. She just loved what a goofball Steven was. “A hamburger?” She asked.

“It's a Novelty Backpack, shaped like a cheeseburger!” Steven explained and held the cheeseburger in front of him to let Amethyst check it out. He looked at it closer and remembered his original plan. “Aww, I blew it. I was just going to wear it one day” – he proceeded to demonstrate how he would carry the backpack on one shoulder, looking cool – “and you would’ve been like, ‘Dang, Steven, that's so cool,’” he mimed how he imagined Amethyst’s expression and hand gestures to look like when she was in awe of his cool backpack. “But this is obviously important Gem business,” he finished, getting serious and striking a strong pose.

“Yeah, so you should let me take care of it,” Amethyst replied.

“Whaaaat?” Steven whined in disappointment, and challenged Amethyst: “I'm a Gem!” He exclaimed while lifting up his shirt, revealing the pink gem in his navel. He tried to stare Amethyst down but also kept glancing at his gem to make sure it was there and looking convincing.

“Buuut...” Amethyst hesitated, “you don’t know a lot of gem stuff yet,” she pointed out gently.

“How will I learn if I’m stuck at home alone all the time?” Steven asked, putting in all his charm and persuasiveness into it.

“Alright alright, you can come,” Amethyst admitted, getting excited about the prospect of not having to go alone. “It'll be educational,” she said with a grin. She handed the statue to Steven. “Here. You can carry it in your hamburger.”

Steven received the statue with deep veneration and a sense of responsibility. He knelt on the floor and opened his backpack to put it in. But the allure of the cool backpack swiped him along again and he forgot the serious mood he was in just a moment before. “Check this out! Everything's a pocket! Even the cheese is a pocket!” He looked from the backpack to Amethyst to check if she was equally excited about his cool backpack. She was, even though she wasn’t showing it quite as visibly as Steven was. More than anything she was happy to see him happy and she just smiled back at his eager face. “I could fit a lot more stuff in here,” Steven added and got up. “Give me a minute. I'll pack extra supplies.”

He ran to the fridge and picked up the bagels that Amethyst had dropped earlier. Then he went back to the wardrobe and proceeded to rummage through everything, selecting two sweaters, an inflatable raft and a kite to stuff into the bag. He ran upstairs and picked up some more useful things. Then right as he thought he was ready and about to return downstairs where Amethyst was waiting, he stepped on something soft.

Steven gasped, looked down and then laughed, picking up a plushie. He laughed and shook the toy, making it grunt “kid don’t shake me.” “Mr. Queasy!” He replied and continued to shake the toy, eliciting a “I’ve got a medical condition” from it. “You're definitely gonna come in handy,” Steven said to the plush doll, took out a first aid kit from his bag to make room for the doll and stuffed it in. One last “uuurgh” was audible before he zipped up the pockets of the backpack.

”Steee-venn, let's go-oh!” Amethyst called from downstairs.

“Coming!” He replied and ran downstairs and onto the warp pad.

“Woah, Steven, did you bring your whole room?” Amethyst asked with a chuckle and Steven laughed nervously.

“Back that thang up,” Amethyst said, indicating to Steven that she was about to warp. The blue light immersed them except for Steven’s stomach, that was poking out of the warp stream. “Suck it in, Steven!” Amethyst yelled, and Steven took a deep breath to pull his stomach in. The warp light engulfed them and they were gone.

\- - -

The warp stream swept Steven’s half-organic body off his feet and he began to slowly spin around his axis. He laughed nervously as he in vain attempted to control his floating. Amethyst, who was warping with her eyes closed, snuck a peek to check on him.

“Do you remember how to do this?” She asked Steven, watching with concern as he floated towards the edge of the warp stream. “Keep your head in,” Amethyst said but there was very little Steven could do about his situation. When his head started to poke out of the beam of light they were traveling in, Amethyst reached over to grab him. “Come on,” she said and pulled him back in just as they arrived in their destination.

The light vanished while they were a few feet above the destination warp pad’s surface and Amethyst landed gracefully on her feet. Steven, who hadn’t managed to correct his posture yet, fell on his face on the warp pad at the base of the spire, several hundred feet below sea level. The spire was located in a hole in the ocean, maintained by gem magic. Waterfalls surrounded the spire in all directions, the water flowing down to the furiously churning vortex at the base of the spire.

Steven looked up from where he had fallen and saw the structure right before his eyes. “Whoa, the Sea Spire!” He exclaimed.

Amethyst was also looking, but she was less impressed. The tower was incredibly dilapidated. She flinched when a piece of the spire crumbled and fell off right before their eyes. Amethyst thought of Rose Quartz and the dozens of times they’d been here to do this, every time the Spire in worse shape. The whole task seemed so futile. Those damn giant birds were always stealing the statue, the need to remember dates and moon cycles to prevent the entire structure from collapsing to the ocean... and for what? They weren’t using the spire for anything and no one would get hurt if it did sink into the sea, so why was it so important to preseve? She didn’t understand, and when she had asked, Rose had just explained the usual Rose-stuff about Earth being beautiful and precious and how things on Earth didn’t need to have a purpose or a use. But wasn’t this a bad gem building built by bad gems? And to make matters worse, Rose had given _Amethyst_ a purpose, to do gem stuff and protect Earth from gem monsters, and frankly Amethyst didn’t always care for the job. And now Rose was gone. And for some reason Amethyst couldn’t bear the thought of not doing everything Rose had told her to do. She couldn’t just let the Sea Spire collapse. And so here she was again, first time without Rose, almost too late.

“Alright, lets go – but be careful,” Amethyst said. Steven didn’t really notice the shift in Amethyst’s mood.

“You got it dude,” he replied, giving her a thumbs up while winking and sticking out his tongue.

Amethyst stared at him, not sure what to make of his reply. “Yesss...” she mumbled and turned to head into the spire. She ran ahead and jumped from the ledge to the tower while Steven was shouting “hey wait up” and trying to keep up – except that she didn’t make the jump. The magic that sustained the whirlpool at the base of the spire pulled Amethyst down with the vortex it created. Amethyst fell into the water with a huge splash. Steven ran to the ledge and looked down, searching for a sight of Amethyst but she had already swam out and back onto the ledge.

“Amethyst!” He cried out when he saw her coming up behind him.

“I forgot about the vortex,” Amethyst said sourly, shaking water from her hair. Steven began to understand why Amethyst often came home from missions covered in various substances. “We can’t just jump.”

“Oh, wait!” Steven had an idea and he took his backpack off. He pulled out the two sweaters from the burger pocket.

“What are those for?” Amethyst asked while Steven proceeded to tie the sleeves of the sweaters together.

“They were for keeping warm,” Steven explained, finishing the knot, “but check it out!” He brandished his two-sweaters-tied-together invention triumphantly to Amethyst, who still wasn’t following, then whipped one end of his make-shift rope around an arch in the spire and catching it. He took a deep breath, desperate to show Amethyst that he was capable, and then ran to the ledge and jumped.

“Steven!” Amethyst panicked. “Wait!”

The vortex pulled Steven down. But he held on to the sweaters which were looped around the arch, and the knot held. He found his feet and braced them against the side of the building, leaning out, took a deep breath and using the elasticity of the knitwear to his advantage, ran up the side of the building, yelling “CHEEEESEBURRRGEEEERRR!” He leapt over the edge into the spire, and managed to land unharmed on his feet albeit slouching, and then straightened up and put his arms out to the sides like a gymnast. Amethyst was wowed and didn’t notice that Steven was facing away from her in order to conceal that he was panting heavily, sweating, and gritting his teeth, freaking out a little now that the adrenaline was letting up a little.

“Steven! Way to go!” Amethyst yelled and followed his example. She summoned her whip, whipped it through the arch and jumped. The vortex pulled her down but she was able to run up the edge of the building, yelling “STEVEN STYYYLE!” as she landed safely inside the spire next to Steven. She looked at him, realised that that could have gone very badly for Steven, and reacted after the fact. “Don’t ever do that again!” She snapped and walked past Steven.

“Sorry!” Steven called to her, and she turned around smiling. “But it was pretty great,” she added and they both grinned.

They walked further into the interior of the spire, Amethyst surveying the structure critically. Everything was falling apart, the walls, the statues; even the murals were completely water damaged. She sighed. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice a creature crawling on a statue until she was right up to it. It startled her and reflexively she summoned summoned her whip and slashed the statue in half, sending the creature flying over the edge of the spire.

“What was that goober?” Steven asked.

“A crystal shrimp,” Amethyst answered. “Their stings really hurt, even gems,” she added. They ascended to the next level and came upon a plaza filled with crystal shrimps. They gasped. “They’re everywhere. We gotta get through there,” Amethyst pointed across the plaza to a doorway and prepared her weapon.

“Bagel sandwich!” Steven yelled and threw two bagels he had fished out from his backpack frisbee-style onto the different sides of the plaza. The shrimp, attracted to the bagels, parted like hair, leaving a clear path across the plaza for Steven and Amethyst to cross.

Amethyst stared what just happened with her mouth open. “Oh hey, what do you know,” she said astonished. As they crossed the plaza, she glanced at Steven and asked, “how did you know that would work?”

“Well, if I were a shrimp, that's what I would do,” Steven replied.

“You are a shrimp,” Amethyst said with a grin and passed ahead of Steven to the entrance to the staircase.

At the top of the staircase Amethyst was walking a few steps ahead of Steven when the wall suddenly cracked and then broke open. A stream of water burst forth and formed a small, rushing river with a waterfall. Their path was cut off.

“What are we gonna do?” Amethyst asked and looked expectantly at Steven.

“What? Me?” Steven looked at her incredulously.

“What have you got?” Amethyst asked. Steven knelt to open the backpack and began to rummage through it. Amethyst began to chant rhythmically “cheeseburger backpack, cheeseburger backpack...” Nervous sweat was beading on Steven’s forehead as he tried to come up with a solution. Then he spotted it! He got out...

“A raft!” He yelled and triumphantly hoisted the yellow inflatable raft above his head and pulled the tab to inflate it.

“Steven, that's so sensible!” Amethyst exclaimed.

Steven tossed the raft in the water. The current grabbed it and it floated away immediately while Steven and Amethyst just stood there staring, dumbfounded. Neither of them had seen that coming.

Amethyst shrugged her shoulders and summoned her weapon. With a deft slash of her whip she sliced a near-by pillar off its base and kicked it so it fell across the water, forming a bridge. What’s little extra damage to a building that is already so badly damaged?

“Good idea anyway, Steven,” she said as they went to cross the make-shift bridge. “But they can’t all be winners,” she consoled him as they continued ever upwards up another staircase.

They made their way up the crumbling, winding stairs and reached the top of the spire, which was at sea level. Night had fallen, the stars were out and the full moon was almost completely overhead. In the exact center of the spire was the Moon Goddess pedestal. Steven looked around in awe.

“This is it,” Amethyst said. “We just place the statue on there and it’s done.”

Steven nodded with a determined look on his face: the very important moment, his chance to prove himself, was here. He opened the bun pocket of his backpack and reached in. He searched around for the statue, but couldn’t find it. He knelt and opened the pocket properly to peer inside, and then the other pockets too. “I, uh, ah, uhh...” he muttered, and Amethyst looked over to him.

“What's the hold-up?” She asked.

Steven looked at her, terrified. “I don't have it,” he confessed.

Amethyst gasped. “What?!”

“I must have left it on the bed!” Steven said frantically.

Amethyst didn’t say anything. Steven didn’t say anything. They just looked at each other, and then as if by command they both looked at the moon, which was still slowly inching forwards regardless of the panic directly below.

“There's... there's no time...” Amethyst mumbled, paralysed.

“Wait!” Steven yelled. “I have an idea!” He pulled Mr. Queasy from the backpack and lifted it for Amethyst to see.

“...Could that work?” Amethyst said to herself, as Steven approached the pedestal with the toy. He placed it on the stand, in a seated position, but it fell to its side grunting “kid, don’t shake me.” And before Steven was able to correct its posture, the spire entered the sub-lunar point and the light of the moon hit the pedestal directly below it.

The toy began to float up.

Steven and Amethyst watched the ascent with bated breath. But after rising only a few feet, Mr. Queasy began to shake violently in the air, making a queasy “uuurgghhh” noise before it exploded to a thousand pieces. Steven and Amethyst screamed in surprise and horror.

They screamed again when cracks began forming on the floor. The waterfalls all around the spire began to close in on them. Everything was shaking.

“Keep steady!” Amethyst yelled at Steven as she fell over. Steven couldn’t figure out what to do, and simply looked around, going “no, no, no, no, no!”

The spire fell to pieces as the ocean closed in on them and Steven and Amethyst both sank under the waves.

They surfaced after a moment, spitting water. For a moment they just stared around, gasping and steadying their breathing.

Steven was inconsolable. “This is all my fault. I broke it,” he said, his face wet with tears and ocean water.

“No, no, Steven, the spire was falling apart when we got here,” Amethyst said. “You handled everything well! Like, two out of four of your ideas worked. That's fifty percent!” She said cheerfully.

At first Steven felt that Amethyst’s comment was a little too flippant for their situation, but her words made him feel warm and safe, even while bobbing in the middle of the ocean. “Yeah...” He thought about it. “I guess you're right. They can't all be winners.”

Right as he finished saying it, bubbles started to raise to the surface of the water. Steven and Amethyst flinched in fear, but it was just the inflatable raft that popped up to the surface and stayed afloat right in front of them. They both stared at the raft mouths agape, until Steven punched the air in triumph and yelled “Wooo!” Amethyst began to chant “Cheeseburger backpack! Cheeseburger backpack! Cheeseburger backpack!” as they got on the raft.

Steven sat in contentment, but Amethyst looked at their surroundings and then finally said with a sigh: “It's a three-hour paddle home.”

Steven opened his backpack for any last tricks he could pull. One more item remained. He reached into the pocket, and for a moment Amethyst was ready to believe the cheeseburger backpack would solve one more problem.

“Would you like a wet bagel?” Steven said holding out the bag of water-logged bagels and stuck out his tongue.


End file.
